I long ago realised that everything I write is in some way intended to get my parents to notice me. Sigh. (I'm 53, one of them is dead and the other is well on the way out the door) Hey ho and onward. There's no unpicking pre verbal hard wiring. I live with it (and sometimes find it funny.)
Credit to you for realising it - it took hours of therapy to reach a similar conclusion about my tendency to ‘people please’. I’m a happier person for all that time spent with Dr. Rosenthal, and she helped me understand things about myself (I do like ‘pre verbal hard wiring’) that would never, ever, otherwise have been possible. I loved therapy. Maybe I should start again. Thanks for the reminder - and, as you say, onward.
I'm more of a typist (with shitty keyboard skills) than a "writer," but I've been typing for a living since I got my first job on a newspaper when I was 16. In the years since I've edited magazines, written thousands of record reviews, been a publicist, freelanced, and now I'm almost 90 I write a Substack and cobble together the occasional press release or artist's bio. Your post was so inspiring and true... Gave up smoking years ago, stopped drinking alcohol a year and a half back, and I'm too old to have (much) sex. Thank God for coffee and music.. . and I wish I could pay for all the Substacks I read, including yours. But, as John Lee Hooker famously said when he was 88, "It's too late to quit now!"
Gah! This is exactly what I needed to hear. Even though my own brain and thousands of journal entries have delivered this same advice to me for years. I could easily never leave the house return phone calls or comb my hair. I have a pair of ivy green sweatpants that I consider my own personal hairshirt. (I’m wearing them right now, in rented flat in the suburbs of Paris, convinced that it’s not “doomscrolling” if I’m just watching comedy clips and animal rescue videos). Sometimes I feel like I’m cursed to want to write anything about anything and then I read something amazing (Alice Monroe’s death kicked off revisiting her and yeah, I suck. So can I not want to do this anymore ? No, apparently not. Fuck). Thank you for this. I’m going to buy that phone safe that’s been in my Amazon queue for 6 months.
Number seven is especially something I needed to read. While some of my best work has come from notes that I keep writing in the after hours of deciding 'okay, I'm done for the day' it's not productive for me to be in the mindset to be thinking about writing 24/7 since it just makes me unnecessarily anxious.
Great list, important reminder, thank you! Today another writer and I talked about getting Out Into the World, and she brought up the grocery store line. The grocery store line saved me during C-d because I was reminded of human kindness. She likes the grocery line because it reminds her that standing next to other humans, after a day of aloneness, is uplifting, and it's easy. You don't think about it much. Get in line, move with the line, walk out with groceries. Her plan became to NOT stock up, to get her out there.
TY - about writing: and it’s not teaching kids …. That’s hard, hard work .
I still have teaching dreams & I retired almost 10 years ago
I was an art teacher so I substitute writing problem with trying to make art - that you sometimes have write about …. Hmmm 🤔 “ ouro bouros “ however that’s spelled
"At some point in the day, go outdoors, if only to get something to eat. You may have cheese, eggs and bread available, but that can be an excuse to avoid the outside world altogether." .... Do you have an X-Ray portal to my fridge, or what
As someone who is an author and whose bill-paying job is M-F, 9-5, and has been for the last 4+ years performed remotely (and with a screen, obviously), I can attest: some days it's really goddamn hard. I'm hopeful that someday things break a certain way because the mental gymnastics involved is very real.
Great advice. Having retired and started on my first novel, (at the grand old age of 70), I have struggled to apply myself to the "job" as I would have hoped. I do listen to music. I do read. And I do "finish work for the day". Starting work and keeping at it, without distraction, is where I struggle.
So this morning, at 08:15, after reading your first rule, I immediately got showered and dressed; and had breakfast. I definitely feel like I've gone to work - albeit, I'm posting this comment, rather than cracking on with my book. But hey. First things first. I needed to thank you - so...
‘Live like a bourgeois, think like an artist’. Was it Flaubert who said that. If so, it worked for him. All the stuff about staying connected to the parts of normal life (get dressed, get out of the house, have friends) resonates. It’s good for mental health.
Your letter spoke to me personally! I struggle constantly and that leads to procrastination 100° of the time. I’m my worst enemy when it comes to writing. You’ve given me some perspective and plan to follow all rules to get where I’m going. Thank you for posting!
I long ago realised that everything I write is in some way intended to get my parents to notice me. Sigh. (I'm 53, one of them is dead and the other is well on the way out the door) Hey ho and onward. There's no unpicking pre verbal hard wiring. I live with it (and sometimes find it funny.)
Credit to you for realising it - it took hours of therapy to reach a similar conclusion about my tendency to ‘people please’. I’m a happier person for all that time spent with Dr. Rosenthal, and she helped me understand things about myself (I do like ‘pre verbal hard wiring’) that would never, ever, otherwise have been possible. I loved therapy. Maybe I should start again. Thanks for the reminder - and, as you say, onward.
Everyone should have therapy if they can afford it.
I'm more of a typist (with shitty keyboard skills) than a "writer," but I've been typing for a living since I got my first job on a newspaper when I was 16. In the years since I've edited magazines, written thousands of record reviews, been a publicist, freelanced, and now I'm almost 90 I write a Substack and cobble together the occasional press release or artist's bio. Your post was so inspiring and true... Gave up smoking years ago, stopped drinking alcohol a year and a half back, and I'm too old to have (much) sex. Thank God for coffee and music.. . and I wish I could pay for all the Substacks I read, including yours. But, as John Lee Hooker famously said when he was 88, "It's too late to quit now!"
Love this so much, Nick, but wasn't it Shelly Duvall not Sissy Spacek in The Shining???xx
They're different people? Ahem. Well. Movies are like sport. It's all a matter of opinion. Thanks to everyone who pointed this out. Corrected.
I was thinking the same thing 🥰
X3. But in Nick's defence, the introductory paragraph doesn't reference time spent as a proofreader :)
Shelley Duvall - fantastic in The Shining.
I LITERALLY SPENT TIME AS A PROOFREADER! But it was in the 80s. I have lost those muscles.
Indeed. And, in fairness to Nick, Duvall and Spacek co-starred in Altman’s 3 Women back in 1977.
Exactly.
So - it all makes sense…
Gah! This is exactly what I needed to hear. Even though my own brain and thousands of journal entries have delivered this same advice to me for years. I could easily never leave the house return phone calls or comb my hair. I have a pair of ivy green sweatpants that I consider my own personal hairshirt. (I’m wearing them right now, in rented flat in the suburbs of Paris, convinced that it’s not “doomscrolling” if I’m just watching comedy clips and animal rescue videos). Sometimes I feel like I’m cursed to want to write anything about anything and then I read something amazing (Alice Monroe’s death kicked off revisiting her and yeah, I suck. So can I not want to do this anymore ? No, apparently not. Fuck). Thank you for this. I’m going to buy that phone safe that’s been in my Amazon queue for 6 months.
Number seven is especially something I needed to read. While some of my best work has come from notes that I keep writing in the after hours of deciding 'okay, I'm done for the day' it's not productive for me to be in the mindset to be thinking about writing 24/7 since it just makes me unnecessarily anxious.
Yes. Anxiety. It's an anxiety-making activity.
Great list, important reminder, thank you! Today another writer and I talked about getting Out Into the World, and she brought up the grocery store line. The grocery store line saved me during C-d because I was reminded of human kindness. She likes the grocery line because it reminds her that standing next to other humans, after a day of aloneness, is uplifting, and it's easy. You don't think about it much. Get in line, move with the line, walk out with groceries. Her plan became to NOT stock up, to get her out there.
TY - about writing: and it’s not teaching kids …. That’s hard, hard work .
I still have teaching dreams & I retired almost 10 years ago
I was an art teacher so I substitute writing problem with trying to make art - that you sometimes have write about …. Hmmm 🤔 “ ouro bouros “ however that’s spelled
"At some point in the day, go outdoors, if only to get something to eat. You may have cheese, eggs and bread available, but that can be an excuse to avoid the outside world altogether." .... Do you have an X-Ray portal to my fridge, or what
As someone who is an author and whose bill-paying job is M-F, 9-5, and has been for the last 4+ years performed remotely (and with a screen, obviously), I can attest: some days it's really goddamn hard. I'm hopeful that someday things break a certain way because the mental gymnastics involved is very real.
Great advice. Having retired and started on my first novel, (at the grand old age of 70), I have struggled to apply myself to the "job" as I would have hoped. I do listen to music. I do read. And I do "finish work for the day". Starting work and keeping at it, without distraction, is where I struggle.
So this morning, at 08:15, after reading your first rule, I immediately got showered and dressed; and had breakfast. I definitely feel like I've gone to work - albeit, I'm posting this comment, rather than cracking on with my book. But hey. First things first. I needed to thank you - so...
Thank you.
Just recently started to realize of some of these things in a kind of half-conscious way, but seeing them here in this list is really helpful. Thanks.
‘Live like a bourgeois, think like an artist’. Was it Flaubert who said that. If so, it worked for him. All the stuff about staying connected to the parts of normal life (get dressed, get out of the house, have friends) resonates. It’s good for mental health.
Excellent post. Thank you. I needed this today. Love the poignant reminder at the end to take care of yourself: “You and your mind are all you have.”
Your letter spoke to me personally! I struggle constantly and that leads to procrastination 100° of the time. I’m my worst enemy when it comes to writing. You’ve given me some perspective and plan to follow all rules to get where I’m going. Thank you for posting!
Writing is hard, esp good writing
“Writing is really quite simple; all you have to do is sit down at your typewriter and open a vein.”
- Red Smith
I love this. It’s poignant, and funny, and true. And simple.
I mean, it’s a good sentence.